Institutional and Legal Arrangements and Its Impacts on Urban Issues in Post Indian Ocean Tsunami

Disasters are seen as opportunities for enhanced institutional and legal arrangements. Steps have been taken in all the affected countries casting an influence on the urban issues such as governance, housing, land-use and transportation. In India, the government gave significant authority to the local governments while in Indonesia urban reconstruction plan, called Blueprint, was adopted and influenced housing, transportation and economic activities in the city. Maldives government had formulated a population consolidation plan and Sri Lanka focused on development approval policies for enhanced community safety. This chapter tries to summarize urban issues impacted by the new institutional and legal arrangements in the decade after the Indian Ocean Tsunami.